‘uy skweyul!
As the First Nations Director of the Camosun College Student Society, I would like to introduce Indigeviews, the new column written on behalf of the First Nations Student Association (FNSA). This column will seek to connect and engage with self-identified indigenous students on campus.
If getting connected with fellow indigenous students on campus is something you’re in to, come to our Crafternoons sessions. Crafternoons is an informal, fully supplied regular event that takes place both at Lansdowne and Interurban to give indigenous students a chance to socialize and play around with crafting supplies (sometimes we have food).
For the Winter semester, we’ll be beginning Thursday, January 29 from 4:30 to 6:30 pm in the FNSA lounge (Young 314 at Lansdowne) and Friday, February 6 from 1 to 3 pm in Portable A, room 101 at Interurban.
We also have an event that’s looking to be more of an all-day thing on Monday, February 9. We’ll be meeting downtown for an informal meet and greet and discussions on upcoming events, then going rock climbing at Craig X (subsidized by FNSA), and then kicking back at Moon Under Water Brewpub. Stay tuned for updates.
To find out more, join our Facebook group at facebook.com/groups/ccfnsa or shoot us an email at fnsa@camosunstudent.org.
I think there are a great deal of people, Indigenous and settler alike, that fail to realize I’m Hul’q’umi’num….as my ancestors before me, we have always called this island home, our foods, travel, and language are rooted to the security and protection of our ancestral ways…it is a knowledge gifted down from woman, not men, most of my knowledge to love, to speak my truths, even through demanding situations, like imperialism, and what colonization has done to racially cleanse us Natives from our own homelands. I’m coastal, my ways come from my families big house, which is now one amalgamated community house; by way of a white law dictating we must live separately. Back when everything was done together, off the island, away from our respected villages, those are the days I look towards for cultural inspiration. I am Hul’q’umi’num, now and always….